Kerbside Violet Lush 2014

Lush perfumes are always slightly hit or miss for me - but this is definitely a hit. It's like Parma Violets in a bottle, laid on a bed of dewy grass.

I'd say the sillage is medium to high, this perfume creates a nice little violet bubble around me and it lasts practically all day. It's definitely one of the stronger perfumes in my collection, one spray on the back of the neck and one on each wrist is plenty. Honestly, any more than that and it can become quite cloying and overwhelming.

Violet is obviously the most forward note here, but it's a very powdery and sweet violet. I can almost feel myself crunching down on a packet of parma violets as I smell this. Underlining the sweetness, however, is a lovely grassy note. Fresh and very green, it's exactly what the violet needs to keep it from overwhelming the senses.

A very comforting scent for me, and one of my favourites.

While smelling the top notes and the beginning of the heart, the name Kerbside Violet seems very apt. I smell violet and also the smell of what you would expect a kerb on the street to smell like. Like crumbled stone or concrete. This phase could also be described as a rougher lush-ier version of the top & heart notes of G.I.R.L by Pharrell. After 45 or 60 minutes it transforms into a hay smell. I couldn't believe there's no hay in the fragrance notes but that's what I smell. I really see this as a hay fragrance, in good way! Like a hay bale at a farm, warm and slightly biological. I give the scent a 70% score. 60% for sillage, the longevity is acceptable.

The inspiration for this violet fragrance was more the small, inconspicuous violet that modestly grows even between cracks in stones, not a noble, vain, overbred variant. Since this violet has to assert itself to avoid being overlooked, the corresponding scent initially comes across as rather rough, strong, and oddly green with these fresh undertones. The other listed notes of jasmine and ylang-ylang don't really help here; only the rosewood I can clearly identify.

If you think that the violet here is just a phantom whose appearance you missed in that one second, you just need to wait a bit. The violet note becomes increasingly stronger, elegant, powdery, and also slightly sweet. However, this sweetness comes without any candy-like stickiness or Victorian opulence. The violet scents itself by the asphalt path, thus creating a connection between urbanity and nature. Who would have thought that this initially small green violet would develop into such a charming and mature fragrance, a scent that, despite its style, never forgets its inherent earthiness.

Kerbside Violet is somehow a typical Lush scent and yet not. Undoubtedly, it is very wearable and for me one of the most beautiful fragrances from the current Volume-3 range, which definitely deserves a regular release. So far, the scent is only available at the Gorilla shop in London/Islington and at Lush in Poole.